Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Christmas Cookies | Sugar Cookies

As I'm preparing for my Holiday Christmas Cookie Brunch Workshop next week, I'd thought I'd share my tried and true, favorite recipe. This is the same recipe my mom used when my sister and I were growing up, decorating sugar cookies for each and every holiday. The dough is incredible to snack on!

In your Kitchen Aid fitted with the paddle attachment, whip together
butter and powdered sugar. Add Flour, vanilla, cream of tarter, soda,
and egg. On slow, stir together ingredients just until combined. Turn
the dough out onto a floured board and wrap it with plastic wrap. Let
the dough rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Unwrap the dough and put it on a floured board. Be sure to flour the rollin pin, as well.

Roll out dough until 1/4 inch thick.

Cut
shapes. Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.

Bake for 6-8
minutes at 350 degrees just until the edges begin to turn brown - baking
time will depend on size and thickness of the cookie.

Utilize scraps of dough by making them into a ball and re-rolling them and cutting shapes.

Royal Icing

3 egg whites
4 cups of powdered sugar

In
the Kitchen Aid fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites
until almost frothy. Add in the powdered sugar and whisk on slow until
smooth. You may need to add more or less powdered sugar or water to
achieve desired thickness. For sugar cookies, you want the icing to be
thin enough that it will fall back on itself and smooth itself out, but
not too thin so it will run off of the cookie.

Good colors are so important to making professional looking sugar cookies. Here are my tips :

Red
: When making red you need to use a lot of food coloring. I also add
orange to the red to make it less pink. Add just a touch of green to
the red to make it less electric.

Green
: I add a little bit of yellow and orange to green to make it more of a
natural green. For christmas, I like to use two shades of green -
light and dark.

Blue : I add a little bit of yellow and orange to blue to make it softer. It is a more sophisticated looking blue.

This was a wonderful recipe my boys and I used to make Easter cookies last weekend. Needless to say, mine weren't quite as pretty (but practice makes perfect), but we enjoyed baking and decorating them. My mom noted that they weren't overly sweet and were just perfect with a cup of tea. I know we'll turn to this recipe again! Thank you!